AN OXFORDSHIRE council which refused to name a former mayor embroiled in a £4,000 row with a taxi driver has admitted it was wrong to do so.

Vale of White Horse District Council said Mike Badcock, councillor for Abingdon Caldecott, was the member who was the subject of a complaint from a driver who took him home after a night out in 2015.

The two argued over whether the driver had gone through a red light and Mr Badcock was said to have claimed he was ‘in a position of authority within the council and in a position to determine that [the driver’s] licence was no longer valid’.

Investigators were paid £4,338 for their work and concluded Mr Badcock should offer to apologise ‘for the distress his actions caused’. Mr Badcock then apologised.

He is twice former mayor of Abingdon, having served in 1990 and 2011.

The Oxford Mail submitted a Freedom of Information request in March asking for the name of the councillor included in a report about councillors’ conduct but it was rejected.

Bizarrely, in turning the request down, the council said it would ‘undermine the confidence of potential complainants in bringing potential breaches of the code of conduct to the council’s attention’ if Mr Badcock was officially named.

It also said it would breach data protection rules if Mr Badcock was officially named.

But in a review, the council’s head of corporate services Adrianna Partridge said it was wrong to cover up the councillor’s identity and confirmed Mr Badcock had been subject of the complaint.

She said: “I conclude that the public interest test favours disclosure in terms of the names of councillors that have had complaints made against them, a summary of the complaint and the decision taken in relation to the complaint.”

Mr Badcock has served as a district councillor from 1983 until 1995 and from 2003 until 2007; he started a third spell in 2011.

The taxi driver said he had moved from acting as a member of the public in his vehicle to someone acting in an official capacity.

Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, everyone is able to access certain information from public sector bodies.

Some is protected – for example, if it would endanger national security or is personal information – but usually information should only be kept private whenever there is good reason.

Since Mr Badcock was the subject of a complaint which cost public money, the Oxford Mail asked for more details.